This class and their source files visual_enviro.[h|c]xx were
unused since OSG transition. It's only functionality was to
keep a variable for the enable-state of rendering of precipitation.
This has now been moved to SGPrecipitation.
This patch also removes all references to this class and
visual_enviro.hxx. Wxradar needs a new implementation for cloud
echoes which probably should be part of fgclouds.
See also SimGear commit 4e6159aa07f2817c09fad72db64d713e47f6f3da
SGCloudField::addCloud does *not* keep a reference to SGNewCloud - so we
only need a temporary object. Also adapt to changed addCloud interface
to make things a little more obvious.
Improvements to the cloudsystem:
- A new xml format
- Texture indexing based on the position of the sprite in the cloud
mass, allowing more control over the texture set.
- Improved fog and shading
- Better sprite distribution
- A more natural distribution of clouds, so no more obvious grids.
static FGAirport helpers. As a result, another global index goes away. Use
the helpers to avoid ugly FGPositioned down-casts in various places.
Also converts the environment/METAR code to deal with FGAirport pointers,
instead of string identifiers, and contains work-in-progress code to implement
the AirportList dialog using FGPositioned. This isn't enabled yet for various
reasons, but is the final piece to allow FGAirportList to be removed.
"I've managed to fix this by differentiating rebuilding the 3D layers
(e.g. due to METAR updates) from rebuilding the entire environment (due to a
change in scenario)."
Attached is yet another 3D clouds patch, to fix the following:
1) The 3D clouds were not modified by the cloud coverage, due to some problems with osg::Switch
2) METAR changes to cloud coverage were not obeyed.
3) Making changes via the Cloud dialog had no effect unless 3D clouds were toggled.
4) Cloud cover was too sparse.
5) 3D Stratus clouds caused performance issues on some hardware (fixed by removing 3D stratus from cloudlayers.xml - it will now be a 2D layer).
- Replaces simple shader attributes with vectors (this was missed out of the last patch by mistake)
- Includes Yon's Fog update code (Thanks!)
- Fixes a bug since 1.0 where --enable-real-weather-fetch stopped the other weather scenarios from working.
- Fix the chequer-board bug.
- Add proper cloud coverage function - so scattered clouds are now truly scattered.
- Add real-time control for visibility range.
- Use a limited set of clouds rather than generating a completely new Geode for each cloud. This saves sorting and display time.
- Add controls to Rendering dialog to allow fine-tuning of the number of sprites, cloud visibility and the number of different types of cloud.
- Add some variance to the sort back-off to avoid all clouds being sorted at the same time.
- Pack attributes into vectors for performance
- Re-order the cloud type determination code so that if a cloud layer could either be stratus or cumulus, cumulus is used.
- Lowered the cloud level in the standard cloud configuration slightly so a cumulus layer is generated rather than stratus.
These last two mean that you should see some 3D cumuli if disabling real weather fetch.
My thanks to Yon Uriarte for his help with performance work.
It fixes the following issues (to a greater or lesser extent):
1) Performance. Quad trees used to improve culling, and the sprites are placed on the surface of a sphere rather than
randomly throughout the cloud, requiring fewer textures. This saves about 5-10fps on my machine.
2) Disabled 3D clouds have no performance impact. Previously they were still in the scenegraph. Now they are removed.
3) Clouds are now loaded on start-up, and don't require the scenario to be changed, they also work with METAR.
4) The cloud field is shifted as you travel. There's a small bug in that the clouds "jump" as you reach the edge of the field.
5) Iterative sorting of sprites. This doesn't appear to solve the alpha blending problem completely, but may help a bit.
Turn OPENSCENEGRAPH_MAJOR_VERSION, OPENSCENEGRAPH_MINOR_VERSION and
OPENSCENEGRAPH_PATCH_VERSION into a single number for comparisons in the
preprocessor.
The prototype of update_metar_properties does not match overridden func.
trafficmgr: iterators below begin() and after end().
tower.cxx : iterator incrementing beyond end().
I tried to make sure accessor functions which return by reference act
on const objects. also replaced some iterators with const_iterator
and a few return/pass by reference that were missed the first time
around.
* Use "const string&" rather than "string" in function calls when appropriate.
* Use "const Point3D&" instead of "Pint3D" in function calls when appropriate.
* Improved course calculation in calc_gc_course_dist()
* Safer thread handling code.
Vassilii Khachaturov:
Dont use "const Point3D&" for return types unless you're absolutely sure.
Erik Hofman:
* Use SGD_(2)PI(_[24]) as defined in simgear/constants.h rather than
calculating it by hand every time.
Attached is a patch to the airport data storage that I would like committed
after review if acceptable. Currently the storage of airports mapped by ID
is by locally created objects - about 12 Meg or so created on the stack if
I am not mistaken. I've changed this to creating the airports on the heap,
and storing pointers to them - see FGAirportList.add(...) in
src/Airports/simple.cxx. I believe that this is probably better practice,
and it's certainly cured some strange problems I was seeing when accessing
the airport data with some gps unit code. Changes resulting from this have
cascaded through a few files which access the data - 11 files are modified
in all. Melchior and Durk - you might want to test this and shout if there
are problems since the metar and traffic code are probably the biggest
users of the airport data. I've also added a fuzzy search function that
returns the next matching airport code in ASCII sequence in order to
support gps units that have autocompletion of partially entered codes.
More generally, the simple airport class seems to have grown a lot with the
fairly recent addition of the parking, runway preference and schedule time
code. It is no longer just an encapsulation of the global airport data
file, and has grown to 552 bytes in size when unpopulated (about 1/2 a K!).
My personal opinion is that we should look to just store the basic data in
apt.dat for all global airports in a simple airport class, plus globally
needed data (metar available?), and then have the traffic, AI and ATC
subsystems create more advanced airports for themselves as needed in the
area of interest. Once a significant number of airports worldwide have
ground networks and parking defined, it will be impractical and unnecessary
to store them all in memory. That's just a thought for the future though.
- replay.cxx :
corrected a bug, now reinitialize the recording data when replay is
deactivated
- fgclouds.cxx :
cloud layers and weather condition are saved when choosing a weather scenario,
added a new scenario 'none' so we can switch back to standard flightgear
weather
- navradio.cxx :
force a search() on init to initialize some variables, preventing a nearly
infinite loop when delta-time == 0 on the first update()
- electrical.cxx :
uninitialized variable in apply_load() for FG_EXTERNAL supplier
- panel.cxx, panelnode.cxx :
added a property "depth-test" for 2.5D panels so that they update the depth
buffer and are no more visible from the outside of the aircraft when the
aircraft uses textures without an alpha channel
- panel.cxx :
moved the computation of the instruments diffuse color outside the
texturelayer code since this is constant during a frame, this is a big speedup
for 2D panels
I did some profiling of the code and found a few interessant things. Some corrections are obvious like the one in the multiplayer code, the fps is no more divided by 2 or 3 when another plane is on screen.
Other things like collision detection and computation of agl can not really be optimized. I changed a few things in hitlist.cxx but this only give a very low increase of fps. The groundcache eats a lot of cpu but I think that the real way to do it is to use a real collision system like OPCODE or something like that.
And I added an option to disable the recording of replay data. It takes more cpu than we can think.
Changes
=======
- panel.cxx :
moved the computation of the instruments diffuse color outside the texturelayer code
since this is constant during a frame, this is a big speedup for 2D panels ;
- hitlist.cxx :
changed the computation of the intersection between ray and triangle, optimized
the sphere culling by using a normalized direction vector. This can give a
35% speedup on the computation of elevation in some situations ;
- renderer.cxx, acmodel.cxx :
call ssgDrawAndCull with plane scene graph in external or internal view,
calling ssgDrawAndCull with the root scene graph was drawing other players plane
a second time in multiplayer mode ;
- mplayer.cxx :
removed the calls to ssgFlatten and ssgStripify because it was degenerating models,
causing a massive drop in frame rate ;
- replay.cxx :
added an option to disable the recording of the flight
- fgclouds.cxx :
changed the path of cloudlayer properties to match preferences.xml ;
set the altitude of clouds from scenarios to a more correct value if metar is not enabled ;
Changes
=======
- correct the transparency probleme when old 3d clouds were enabled
(rendering context with an alpha channel)
- changed rain cone orientation, it can now be viewed from helicopter or chase
view (still not tower view)
- clouds are a bit more yellow/red at dawn/dusk
- weather data is now correctly propagated to the interpolator, this correct
visibility, wind, etc
- the 'metar' weather scenario now immedialty reuse the real metar data
- real metar no more overwrite custom weather scenario
This is another update for the cloud code, a lot of lines but this time I have started to add the doxygen doc.
Misc
====
- corrected a bug when RTT is not available, the current rendering context was
altered
- if RTT is not available then 3d clouds are not drawn at all
- impostors lighting is now recomputed when the sun changes position
- distant objects are no more seen in front of clouds
- blending of distant clouds is a bit better now
- litle optimization of code (uses a less cpu time)
- use layer wind speed and direction (no more hardcoded wind)
- fov is no more hardcoded
Changes
=======
- clouds (cu only) are dissipating/reforming (experimental)
- compute a turbulence factor that depends on surrounding clouds and type of
clouds (experimental)
- clouds shapes are defined in cloudlayers.xml
- type of clouds present in a layer is also defined in cloudlayers.xml
- cloud layers are generated from metar and other misc. data (in progress)
- added a rain effect around the viewer (enabled in the rendering dialog and
when the metar property says so)
- added a lightning effect (enabled in the rendering dialog) : cb clouds spawn
new lightnings
- added a dialog to select from different weather source : metar/property,
a 'fair weather' environment and a 'thunderstorm' environment.
